


these our bodies possessed by light

by suzukiblu



Series: Avamorphs [2]
Category: Animorphs - Katherine A. Applegate, Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, F/M, First Meetings, Fluff and Angst, Hork-Bajir, Interspecies Romance, Kinda, Yeerks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-26
Updated: 2019-12-26
Packaged: 2021-02-26 01:00:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 958
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21974713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/suzukiblu/pseuds/suzukiblu
Summary: “I understand,” Azula Eight Nine Five says in that condescending voice when Mai Six Two Four says she won’t take the mission. “Human host breaksoeasy.”And she chuckles, and Mai gets a bad feeling.
Relationships: Mai/Zuko (Avatar)
Series: Avamorphs [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1581343
Comments: 6
Kudos: 230





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Maiko-centric prequel side stories.

Zuko Five Three Three’s first permanent host is a Hork-Bajir. It’s not very intelligent, but it’s passive—voluntary, of course, because it’s his first. It has a mate, and its mate is also voluntary. All either of them requires in exchange for complete obedience is to spend the time they have free together, which isn’t particularly hard to arrange; it just means Zuko’s usual standing appointment with the pool is rescheduled. 

That’s how he meets Mai Six Two Four. 

The new body is _strange_ , but Zuko’s host is passive and does not fight him and Mai Six Two Four is very useful in helping him understand the way a Hork-Bajir’s body works as he acclimates. Her host is larger than his; it’s the male of the species. Zuko thinks he prefers his female, though; its blades are more delicate and so its strikes are more precise, and what it lacks in power it makes up in speed. 

He likes being fast. He’s never _been_ fast before. 

He can _outrun_ Mai Six Two Four. 

That’s . . . oddly pleasing. At first he isn’t certain why, but then he realizes it’s partly the host’s pleasure he’s feeling—it is fast, it is faster than its mate and it wants to _play_ with its mate. 

Yeerks do not play. Not like Hork-Bajir do. 

Zuko finds it _fascinating_. 

Mai Six Two Four is very solemn and very serious and very easily bored. She is _not_ fascinated by the concept of play. Zuko tries to repress his own curiosity in favor of paying attention to the lessons she’s giving him in how to fight—it’s inappropriate and entirely unproductive and he knows better than to let his host dominate his interests. Except it’s not really that, it’s only a _little_ bit that. 

He’s just curious. He’s curious and he wants to know more; he wants to _understand_ these unfamiliar feelings and desires and . . . and . . . 

It’s not appropriate. So he represses it, and he does his duty and learns how his host’s body works, and when Mai Six Two Four steps in close to him to adjust his form his host purrs in its mind and flashes through a dozen memories that make no sense at all. 

Zuko blinks. 

He wants to ask Mai Six Two Four what they mean, but he doesn’t know the appropriate words to describe them. He tries to search his host’s mind, but he’s not very good at that yet and mostly he just confuses himself. He even tries to ask his host directly, but it doesn’t understand the question and just gets stuck on the memories and keeps playing with them and purring to itself over them and then the body feels _strange_. Much stranger than it already felt. 

Mai Six Two Four pauses in demonstrating the proper way to slice with forearm blades, and tilts her host’s head towards him curiously. Zuko doesn’t understand the expression she wears, but his host’s mind calls it interest. 

“Zuko Five Three Three let host affect body,” Mai Six Two Four says. 

“How?” he asks in confusion. Mai Six Two Four doesn’t answer, but her long neck leans forward and her head . . . _brushes_ his, suddenly, and the stranger feeling gets that much stranger and Zuko doesn’t _understand_ and his host’s memories rush over him and then he knows what he’s supposed to do back. He leans into the contact and it’s so very careful and _delicate_ and he wouldn’t have thought Hork-Bajir were meant to be so delicate, but . . . well. 

Apparently they _are_. 

“What is _feeling_?” he murmurs, and Mai Six Two Four’s horns rub against his own and entirely free of both his control and his host’s, the body _shivers_. 

“Mai show,” she says, and that’s how Zuko learns about the kind of mating that _doesn’t_ kill you. 

It turns out to be much more interesting than the concept of play.


	2. Chapter 2

“I understand,” Azula Eight Nine Five says in that condescending voice when Mai Six Two Four says she won’t take the mission. “Human host break _so_ easy.” 

And she chuckles, and Mai gets a bad feeling. 

And then that night, Zuko Five Three Three’s host shows up for their shift with a different Yeerk inside. 

Mai goes cold, and does not address the stranger more than strictly necessary. Eventually she is informed that Zuko Five Three Three has been requisitioned for the Earth invasion as part of the infiltration and given a human host. The mission is long-term, and he will not be returning to duty aboard Ozai Three’s Blade Ship. 

The mission is the mission Azula Eight Nine Five wanted her for. The one Mai refused, because she didn’t want to leave Zuko Five Three Three. 

_Human host break SO easy._

Zuko Five Three Three has a human host now. 

Mai has not seen many humans. A few, of course, but mostly they all look the same to her. They come in a wide variety of colors, they come in generally different sizes and shapes, but they’re small and soft creatures and so very _slight_. Mai could pick a full-grown one up with the strength in one claw—she’s never seen one any taller than her host’s elbow, or any better than half as wide as her host. 

They’re so small. So small and so _soft_ and she’s seen them dissected a time or two and . . . they’re so _delicate_ , humans, a Hork-Bajir body could kill one without even _thinking_ about it and a Taxxon with only slightly more difficulty, they’re so _delicate_. They’re . . . 

Zuko Five Three Three has a human host now. A small, soft host that could break so easily, that a Hork-Bajir body could kill without even thinking about it.

That a Hork-Bajir body could kill entirely accidentally.

**Author's Note:**

> [Tumblr!](http://suzukiblu.tumblr.com/)


End file.
